[ANHBUC]

Have been looking for a cause as one of my birds regularly lays softies.  Have tried all the remedies including limestone flour and they all have little to no effect.  Have found this as a possible cause on The poultry Club of GB website.

"Infectious Bronchitis
Infectious Bronchitis is a viral disease initially affecting the respiratory system in a young bird which clears up in a few days. The virus can then localise in the reproductive tract and cause misshapen or soft-shelled eggs with very watery whites when the bird begins to lay. There is no cure once this has happened but there is a vaccine, best given at day old."

I bought the hen at 20 weeks old so she could have already had IB as she has never had any symptoms since and was laying softies when I got her. 

[jhub]

Hello ANHBUC
How old is she? Is she laying any normal eggs?
I had this problem with one of mine and had a lot of advice so have copied the thread here
http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=78909.0
Unfortunately it was not a good outcome for my chook but she was suffering greatly.
Regards,
Jane

[ANHBUC]

Thanks for that jhub, I have tried everything that Hillfooter has mentioned.  I really do think that she must have had an infection before we got her.  She is just over 2 years old but has had a problem with her eggs more often than not.  She laid double yolkers frequently and I thought that was the reason she could not produce enough shell.  Some times she laid 2 eggs in one day.  She also lays the white without a shell sometimes so she is a really messy hen.  She is one of my husbands hens otherwise I probably would have culled her by now as the softies cause a hygiene problem if not cleared up straight away.  She has recently gone through moult and was laying very thin shelled eggs.  She now has a lovely new set of feathers but is back to softies again. 

She is of course top hen and the greadiest.  I could keep her in the walk in run when the others are freeranging so she just eats layers pellets.  Then I think that she would get really stressed and that would be unfair.  I wouldn't mind if she ran out of eggs and didn't lay again, it would mean less mess to clean up.    

[jhub]

It's a real dilemma and the only reason I culled my hen was because she was in such distress, otherwise I would have kept her as a pet.

[wildwitchy]

Tylan can work well for these kind of infections. I had a leghorn trio that I rescued and I think they had IB. They were very poorly & thought I might loose the 3.  The eggs were wrinkly and thin shelled. Sometimes with spots on them. One of them died, but the other two survived. I used baytril for mine and they recovered but the eggs were still always on the thin side regardless of what I did.